


Slow Road

by jinxes (bobbemorse)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Multi, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 05:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4693370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbemorse/pseuds/jinxes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a while it's getting harder to convince herself that these two girls are staying just because they feel obligated to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Road

It's not perfect. But then again it hasn't been for a while, at least not for Tracy. Not by a long shot.  
It's not perfect but it is something to hold on to. And Lydia and Malia are probably the closest thing to warmth Tracy has right now. 

Because she's cold. All the time. Theo is dead and it's a damn good thing he is but it doesn't take the emptiness away. The numbness of being dead and not able to shake it off, not even being able to imagine a time where she might be warm again. 

At first she suspects Malia and Lydia to feel responsible and burdened with the task of looking after the zombie girl who killed her own father. (She still stumbles over that thought, trying to grasp the memory of it, looking for just a trace of remorse, never being able to grab onto the reality of it.)

It's awkward and silent most of the time in the beginning, too. Malia turns up behind her in school, tailing her to her next class or to the parking lot, giving Tracy a feeling of security and dread simoltaneously because what the hell is she supposed to say to someone she fought just seconds before her own death?  
Basically, she doesn't. She doesn't say anything. 

Lydia turns up a few days of these utterly silent walks around the school waving Tracy to her car and offering her a ride home with that same look in her eyes she had when she came up behind Tracy at her locker, asking if she was alright. When Tracy gets in (silently, she can't take anything but silence from herself) she watches Lydia and Malia's upper bodies through the window, sees how Malia's hands move while she talks and how Lydia lays one hand on her arm, sees how Malia – for just a second – covers Lydia's hand with her own. 

It makes her stomach churn, makes her nails dig into her own arms that haven't been touched that tenderly in what feels like an eternity.   
When Lydia starts the car the air conditioning is turned on. Tracy doesn't feel a chill. She doesn't think it's possible to feel any colder.

*

After a while it's getting harder to convince herself that these two girls are staying just because they feel obligated to. Tracy still doesn't talk much, her voice sounding misplaced, too loud or too quiet when she does but when she does she speaks of trivial things, correcting Malia's homework or asking Lydia what kind of nail polish she wants. 

They accept it, though, taking the nothing Tracy has to offer and turn it into something small and fragile in their hands.   
She thinks she sees lines she can't cross when Malia slowly slides an arm around Lydia's waist in such an intimate motion that the insecurity of it breaks Tracy's heart or when Lydia leans into Malia even though the situation doesn't necessarily require it. 

But then she notices how often Lydia's hands linger when she does Tracy's hair or how Malia's eyes roam up and down her body when she steps out of school, Malia always waiting outside, dependable and brightening Tracy's thoughts just slightly. 

She also notices how neither Lydia nor Malia seem to be fazed when she links her fingers with theirs in the shopping center where it takes all that's left of her to pull herself together and walk right by the other people, two strong barriers at her side. 

Tracy decides not to question it. It's going to go away in time anyway.

*

It hits kind of unexpectedly because she's in Lydia's room, sitting on the floor while Malia lies stretched out next to her, bickering with Lydia about her extensive shopping trips because they make her feet hurt in answer to which Lydia cocks her head to the side and uses her sweet voice when she says:   
"The werecoyote who spent years running in the woods. Sure, I'll take it." 

And it's that voice, the familarity of the conversation that stirs it up. That deep rooted sense of home that would come up whenever her dad was on the phone, laughing with someone, teasing someone while she sat somewhere close by, not even listening closely.   
It's the feeling that got torn up as soon as she was injected by the Dread Doctors and is now left in shreds at the bottom of her repressed memories. 

She can't contain the broken sounds that escape her for five seconds.

It's the hiccuping kind of crying that would leave her hollow if she didn't feel like that all the time anyway. Her stomach hurts in a sharp way and her eyes are burning but the tears that keep coming with every broken sob feel warm on her face and she can't quite grasp that because nothing she's done since she was resurrected has felt like this.   
This freeing. 

And she knows that the arms that wrap themselves around her aren't going to choke her, they aren't going to disappear. They're just there and at this moment it feels like they could stay. 

It's not perfect but she's warm.


End file.
